Today, computers are drastically more complex than the computers from a year ago. With this growth in hardware complexity has been an equal, if not greater, growth in software complexity. By being able to build onto previously developed applications, software designers have been able to easily increase the number of options available from any given application.
The problem with this advancement in software is that trying to gain access to, or become aware of, all the options available to a user is nearly impossible unless the user has some prior knowledge. With computer display space at a premium, many software developers include these expanded features into hierarchical menus that many users, especially novice users, liken to a maze. Other software developers attempt to give the user a display of all the available options by creating a multitude of icons representing each option. The problem with this method is that as these options, and their corresponding icons, grow in number, display space remains limited. A desktop with too many icons creates a disorganized and difficult-to-decipher workspace. One could simply make the icons smaller. However, that would limit their ability to convey their presence to a user, not to mention make them more difficult to read, move, or select.
The utility that has spawned the popularity of computers today is the graphical user interface, or GUI. As is well known, GUIs offer the user an array of options, typically in the form of icons, which are selected and the underlying applications executed with the aid of a cursor controlled by a pointing device such as a mouse. In many GUIs today, there is such a myriad of graphics and text that it is easy to become confused as to what are selectable options that can be executed, and what are just images placed in the display to make the operating environment more appealing to the eye. To overcome this confusion, many cursors have a function integrated into them that will present a response when the cursor is in contact with an option that is selectable. The cursor in these systems will not respond if the user moves the cursor over an object that is displayed merely for looks. A typical response from the cursor to identify these selectable options, or hotspots, is to highlight the object by making it darker, brighter, larger, or sometimes by making it move. Although this helps the user to a certain extent, there remains a problem with newer, more advanced GUI technology.
With the advent of animated menus, the user can now see a myriad of options scrolling or spinning within the display. This method of displaying enables a GUI to present more options to a user while occupying only a small amount of display space real estate. The constant motion, changing of shape, and changing of size of these selectable targets also presents a problem for the conventional methods of target highlighting mentioned above. To configure the animated display to further change the appearance of the moving targets in the presence of a cursor would be very problematic, if not impossible. However, there is another way for these GUIs to be further enhanced.
While highlighting and presenting dialog boxes can be helpful to a user to a certain extent, a more informative and indicative highlighting operation is possible. By allowing the cursor to change shapes in response to the cursor, either at rest or in motion, being present on a hotspot or selectable option, the user interface and the included moving display can be made more helpful and informative. To further enhance this change of cursor utility, one could configure the cursor's change in such a way that the reshaped cursor is actually a miniature representation of the original hotspot over which the cursor is hovering.
Accordingly, what is needed is: an option display system that allows large quantities of options to be displayed while requiring a minimal amount of display space real estate, an option display system that systematically presents options to a user without any interaction, an option display system that maintains the most current available options in view of a user, an option display system that can provide additional information upon request about a displayed option, an option display system capable of clearly indicating a cursor's contact with a selectable option, and an option display system that incorporates all of the above and still allows the user to utilize the remainder of the display space to operate other applications.